"What am I to do?" asked Alice.
"Sew up that bit of seam that is ripped."
Alice sat down on the ground, and after some difficulty succeeded in reducing a rent of a quarter of a yard to a pretty respectable seam.
"Well done!" said Agnes. "Now let us have another look. Oh, yes, there is a place torn! and while I do it will you two go round again for my frame? The room will be dry, and we can do the final touches all together."
There could be no objection to this, and the children hastened away just as Jane came out with her pail and brushes. "It's all done, miss," she said.
"Then, when they return, will you come up again, Jane? I shall not want you till then."
They all ran down, and left Agnes alone. She finished the carpet, and then went into the box-room and looked round.
"Oh, Master John," she said, half aloud, "of course you were not going to give me anything to do; but just look here! However," she added, smiling to herself, "perhaps this was Hugh!"
So patiently she set herself to make the best of it. She folded, and sorted, and pinned up in bundles, and had nearly finished tidying the great heap, when the children came hurrying back, bearing in their arms a nice Oxford frame, through the glass of which shone out what was to be John's life-text, "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?"
"Oh, Agnes," said Minnie, "did you buy it with your very own money?"